


The Letter M

by J_Not_Joker_Not_Jack_Just_J



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Batjokes, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Fluff, Heavy Angst, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8380753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Not_Joker_Not_Jack_Just_J/pseuds/J_Not_Joker_Not_Jack_Just_J
Summary: “I've been thinking of words that start with the letter ‘M’” ~Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland by Tim BurtonA mysterious man slips through the Batman's fingers and drowns in a vat of chemicals. Bruce now deals with the aftermath, his own guilt, and paranormal activity.





	1. Manifest

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting fanfiction, so feedback would be very nice, but not required. 
> 
> This story could go for awhile. I don't know how many chapters. But I'm working on chapter two already. Hopefully I can get it up in a reasonable amount of time.

> CHAPTER ONE  
>  Manifest

The factory building is crawling with thugs when Bruce lands on the rooftop. He watches them scatter about before he jumps through the window. He finds himself in the middle of four of them. Bruce punches one in the jaw. He punches the second. Then the third. By then, the fourth is running. Bruce chases the red cape across the elevated walkways before the Red Hood comes to an intersection and turns around and begs.

"Please! I'm so sorry!" He yells. "I- I didn't have a choice! I'm sorry!"

Bruce reaches for the handcuffs on his belt. The Red Hood runs again. Bruce continues the chase.

The Red Hood trips near the edge and goes over the railing. Bruce barely catches his arm before he drops twelve feet.

"Help me! Oh god, help me! Please!" He cries. So desperate. So fearful.

Bruce can only pull him up so far before the gunshots start again. The Red Hood slips through his fingers. Bruce ducks away from bullets. All the while, the screams of the terrified man ring in his ears...

  
They still ring past waking. This was the third nightmare since the incident. The other four nights he couldn't even think about sleep. He was barely functioning.

It wasn’t like he was a stranger to exhaustion. As Bruce Wayne, he owned and ran a multi-million dollar company. Wayne Enterprises had been his focus for awhile now. Attending board meetings, holding Galas, financial planning, the whole shebang, was his life, and that life, that responsibility, was heavier than he first thought it would be. He'd had many late nights even before coming back to Gotham. However, the Batman had taken a new shape, from a side job to his main focus, and the concept changed faster than light itself. Adopting this new form under the moonlight had driven Bruce to sacrifice nearly all of his sleep. It had been seven months; he wasn’t used to the new routine yet. Perhaps he never would be.

Bruce rubbed his eyes and sat up gently. Alfred knocked on the door, breakfast on a tray. Bruce told him to take it away. He wasn't hungry that morning. He hadn't been hungry for the past several mornings.

***

The day couldn't have been slower. Bruce sat through two board meetings, each about two hours long. Coffee could only do so much for him, yet he downed each cup as though the cups were bourbon.

His secretary had noticed how rough he'd been lately. It had been a good idea to hire her. She knew to set appointments at reasonable times and dates. Bruce should give her a raise. He really ought to give her a raise.

"I've got you booked next Tuesday at noon, Mr. Wayne," she said as he walked past. Her voice was calm yet perky. Somehow, she seemed to make him smile even on days like this, which made pretending to be a happy-go-lucky playboy a bit easier.

"Thank you, Ms. Jones," he replied.

As he walked past her another person walked up to him. His shy posture told Bruce he was new.

“Mr. Wayne? I have your coffee.”

“Thank you,” Bruce said with the brightest smile he could manage. “And you're name is?”

His expression changed from shyness to shock. “Blake Wright, sir.”

“Then thank you, Blake.” Saying a person's names would make him feel closer to that individual. Especially when he feels down and blue. Bruce has memorized every face and name of the people he's ever met. And Bruce had a feeling Mr. Wright was going to be someone he'd enjoy knowing. “Feel free to leave a message with my secretary if you ever need anything.”

With that, Bruce walked on past.

Something about meeting Blake Wright made Bruce smile as he continued to his next appointment. He was a nervous little thing but he seemed kind.

 _I don't even know who fell in_ , his thoughts pressed.

The good feeling Bruce held was soon extinguished with this realization. His tasks before him suddenly seemed enormous.

He'll review tapes again that night since he couldn't do them now. There had to be some clue as to who the man was. Bruce knew he was the victim, a pawn, but this only told him about his character. He wondered if he’d ever find out more.

He had been terrified, Bruce recalled.

_A bat. Why did I choose a bat? I wanted to scare criminals, yes, but I never wanted to terrify a man to-_

He fell in. That man fell in. He didn't jump.

***

James Gordon may not have been the highest ranking in the GCPD, but he had enough charisma to get his fellow police officers to follow leads from a mysterious source. He was about fifteen years older than Bruce, and already married to a fine woman. Gordon was trustworthy, dedicated, and overall lawful, but what made Gordon dangerous was his previous career in the military. At first glance, it might have been hard to see between the way he disposed of his cigarette buds and his relaxed slouch, but there was a determined spark in his eyes, a certain sharpness in his wit, and a strength behind his words which could only be found in experience.

Gordon had made his intentions clear. He wanted to help the people here and free them from the grimy hands of corruption. Finding who owned these hands would have been hard on his own, but with the Batman's help, the city would eventually be free. Although Bruce had his own resources, he recognized his need for Gordon's help. After all, one man can only do so much. These hard set beliefs were the driving force between the two's partnership.

This wasn’t to say the road hadn’t been rocky beforehand. It was still rocky now. They hardly knew each other, or rather, Gordon knew nothing about the Batman while Bruce knew a decent amount about him. The imbalance created tension when they worked together. For such reasons, the two hardly spent a second longer than they had to together. In fact, Bruce had developed a habit of leaving immediately after all important information was exchanged. This sometimes meant leaving before Gordon was done speaking.

Gordon had been the one who took the thugs away just one week ago. This would explain why he was sent back to Ace Chemicals when another body was found.

 _A 'body'. How generous of you,_ Bruce thought to himself.

Ace Chemicals had been broken into, but not destroyed. Due to the lack of damage to their normal everyday equipment, the management had the workers return within seventy-two hours of the incident. System checks were in order, chemical checks would follow. Five days after the incident, vat number seven flagged for contamination. Workers guessed something was mixed in.

The client claimed the chemicals were not reacting properly. To test this, the workers took a sample and dropped a nickel sized piece of copper into it. When no reaction occurred, the workers concluded foreign objects must have come in contact with the chemicals and made it more stable. They drained the chemicals in order to refill the vat, only to find their foreign object. A red hood mask with an electrical shortage.

The electricity caused a chemical change, breaking down the compounds within a week. The chemical change resulted in a completely new chemical; one that would not react with copper.

What had sent the workers screaming were the bones found close to the wall.

One femur and half of the second. The pelvic bone worn away around the edges. Six spinal discs. Two shoulder blades, both half the size they should have been. Lastly, a skull with a chunk missing from the back of the head. All of which were bleached white and polished.

 _Oh yes,_ he thought to himself. _How generous indeed._

The only things which could have possibly identified the corpse (fingerprints, teeth, etc.) were destroyed by the acid. He would be declared as a John Doe.

  
By the time Bruce got to Ace Chemicals, the police had the area taped off. Gordon was interviewing the workers who discovered the bones. Other officers were gathering evidence. Bruce lifted the police tape and stepped under it. He walked towards the vat where the medical examiner had carefully placed the bones in order. Bruce knelt down by the bleached bones and examined them.

They were dry. Someone might have wiped them clean. Touched them. For a moment, Bruce’s state of mind wavered as his mind conjured an image of him petting the skull. He shook his head gently to send the image away.

Bruce noticed Gordon out the corner of his eye as he talked with the medical examiner. They stood too far away to hear what they were saying, but Gordon's body language wasn't promising. When Gordon started walking towards Bruce, he stood and let Gordon examine the bones next.

"The suspect said they had one more man unaccounted for," Gordon stated. "This one must be him. If the cameras weren't disabled, maybe we could confirm it, but if we don't have an eye witness, then we'll have to dig deeper."

Gordon turned towards Bruce. He was the first inside the building that night. According to the police reports, three men had already been handcuffed by the Batman before the officers opened fire. There was no mention of Red Hood, because they didn't see Red Hood.

Bruce was quiet for only a few seconds, but these seconds were too long.

What would he say to Gordon? Bruce remembered rushing to the last of the gunmen. He didn't go back to the vat. He didn't go back. Oh no, Bruce figured there would be a drainage pipe in there and that the man would have been swept out by it. Bruce didn't go to the vat to check his theory, but he went to the river outside the plant instead. He had Gordon's men check with him that night. Oh yes, he wasted their time searching a theory. He hadn't told Gordon that he couldn't pull the scrawny man to safety. Hadn't told Gordon that he failed to help one man. No, he told him that he saw a glimpse of a running man, and that was it.

To be fair, Gordon hasn't told him everything either.

"There was a janitor in the office," Bruce said. This much was true. "I was worried stray bullets might hurt him. My priority became his safety. If this man was the one in the red hood, then he ran while I fought his partners."

Gordon turned back to the bones. "That's a shame."

All around him, agents rushed to gather evidence. If Bruce listened carefully, he could make out a few words.

"Is this blood?"  
"Where's the black light?"  
"---scratches on the walls---"  
"Maybe he fell?"  
"The railing is dented!"  
"---one did this on---"  
"---purposely clawed on the interior---"  
"Batman."

Bruce focused on Gordon, and then what he was pointing at. A set of four keys.

"Wonder why these didn't dissolve," Gordon said.

"Looks like the red hood cowl made it, too," Bruce pointed out. "Maybe not the whole thing, but at least the main parts. Perhaps metal isn't broken down by this chemical." Bruce paused. He turned his body towards the keys. "The teeth look worn away though. I doubt they could open anything. Can you figure out what they used to open?"

"Maybe we can find out where this poor bastard lived."

***

The bones were taken back to the precinct. The medical examiner called Gordon in and explained the details.

Bruce had gone back to the cave and started going over any footage available from that night. So much of it was tampered with by the thieves. Only two cameras remained untouched, and they weren't close enough to see anything. The audio was a different story.

Bruce stayed there for an hour and a half listening to the audio, playing with frequencies, looping isolated clips, but everything he thought he heard was useless to identifying the man.

"Just keep moving! We've got to hurry before he gets here!"

"Who gets here?"

"The Batman, you fool!"

"Oh, right. The offices are this way."

Two voices overlap suddenly with hisses.

"Ugh, somebody make him stop talking!"

"He's gonna get us caught!"

"I'm sor-"

"Shut up!" An audible click of a gun safety switch can be heard on tape.

Then the crash through the window as Bruce jumped through.

"It's him!"

Bruce stopped the footage as he leaned back into his chair and thought. Had he heard that voice before? He can't remember. It's sweet. Mellow, a little nervous in this situation, but far from harsh. He doesn't smoke, but that doesn't say anything special about him.

He tapped in the command to fast forward, and he resumed the footage at timestamp 1:08 AM.

"Help me! Oh god, help me! Please!"

The gunshots ricocheted off metal walls. A scream intertwined with them and he heard a splash not too long after.

"If he was there all along..." Bruce mused aloud.

Again, Bruce fast forwarded through the audio, this time until 1:34 AM, when everyone had left. He enhanced the audio and listened carefully.

About twenty minutes into this new audio, he heard something. Just barely there, but he heard the deep, spine chilling sound. Like sandpaper on metal. It took a moment for Bruce to realize the rhythm behind the scratches, but once he did, he felt nauseous.

Skritch, skritch, skritch, scratch, scratch, scratch, skritch, skritch, skritch.

Dot. Dot. Dot. Dash. Dash. Dash. Dot. Dot. Dot.

Over and over the message repeated unrelentingly. After listening to it seven times, he finally pressed stop. He choked down the bile just begging to come up, then Bruce grabbed the coffee cup and sipped from it. He's had enough for one night. He should go to bed.

***

Bruce watches a faceless man scratch on metal. He's been scratching for a long time. Ten minutes, an hour, maybe three for all Bruce knows. The vat is filling to the brim again. Filling fast.

"Help!" the faceless man cries. "Can anyone hear me?!"

His voice, panicked and sad, is still so beautiful. Smooth and silky.

He scratches still as the sludge reaches his stomach. He's in pain. Bruce feels it rather than sees.

He bangs on the wall; his fear is taking a different turn.

"PLEASE! Oh god, someone help me! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

The slime clings to him as it eats through fabric and skin.

His nails screech against the metal now. Panic curling its clammy hands around his neck. Red drops hit the green slime, crawling ever closer and closer to his neck.

"HELP!"

He's going frantic. There's tears from nonexistent eyes. They drip, gently, oh so gently on top of the chemicals.

He breathes rapidly, although each breath is short and lost quickly.

"I can't breathe! Can't- I can't-"

The screech of nails on metal stops all together. He screams in pain as the acid reaches his face and blood drips from his fingers.

Bruce woke again with the screaming dull in his ears. His own breathing was hard. Perhaps just as hard as the nameless man. He shook his head and calmed down after what seemed like an hour. Finally, he stood and moved toward his bathroom. He stared in the mirror. He stared at his eyes in particular. The blue stood so vividly against his skin, framed by the locks of black hair that drifted into his face.

 _It's not fair,_ he thought. _He had a face too. He deserves a name._

The idea occurred to him in a spark of genius.

He'll be called a John Doe.

No one will know him.

Bruce Wayne could at least give him a funeral.

***

Bruce stepped into the Police department. He hadn't even come up with a reason to be here. He didn't even think. And then it popped into his head as soon as he saw Gordon.

He strided to Gordon's work zone. Files were stacked, a computer was running through some database, and Gordon sat in his chair smoking with papers in hand. His partner was gone, so this was the perfect opportunity to talk to him.

"Mr. James Gordon?" Bruce put out his hand to shake. "Hi, my name is---"

"Hello, Mr. Wayne." Gordon sat the papers down and walked around his desk to meet Bruce. He took his hand and shook it, then let go, quicker than Bruce would expect from him. Bruce should have brought him coffee. "What's the occasion?"

"Uh, well, I think I was being stalked and I wanted to check in with someone to make sure I can fix that."

"Stalked? Do you have any proof?"

 _Shit_ , Bruce thought.

"I thought I saw someone around my car. When I called to them, they ran. It's happened several times over the last week. It's really weird!"

Gordon stared hard at him and crossed his arms. "And what did they look like?"

_Fuuuu_

"Uh. Brown coat, kind of dirty actually," Bruce blurted out, then added, "Also kind of short and they slouched bad."

"Were they homeless?"

"Homeless?" Bruce feigned confusion. Really he started to worry about whether this lie would work at all.

Gordon bought the act well enough though. He dropped his arms to his side and then into his pockets. "Homeless, yes. None of them are actually dangerous. They just don't see such nice things and I'm sure they might have been looking for money or food."

"Oh. That's upsetting."

"Well," Gordon sighed. "There's not much we can do."

"I'll set up a charity event." Bruce smiled then.

"That's very nice, Mr. Wayne. If you don't mind though, I have a missing persons list to read over."

"Missing person? What happened?"

Gordon turned back to his desk. With a tired exhale he replied, "We found a body without ID."

"So... That's a John Doe, right?"

"Yeah, a John Doe. We think the poor bastard drowned in a bunch of chemicals. It destroyed most of his body and everything we could have used to identify him."

"What will happen to the body?"

"It will be released and buried in a potter's field."

  
Bruce pretended to think about what was said. He already knew what “the playboy millionaire” would say. After half a minute, Bruce said, "Well. If you can't find the family, why don't I give the funeral?"

Gordon turned back to Bruce and raised an eyebrow. "You'd do that?"

"Sure," Bruce managed casually. He needed to stay aloof, even though he could hear the man's screaming in the back of his head. "I've got the money. Besides, I feel bad for him. It sounds like an awful way to go."

Awful? He thought. Now that's an understatement.

Gordon considered the idea. "You know what? We can get you the papers to do that."

Bruce smiled. "Really? Today?

"You should talk with the medical examiner and see if they have the documents."

***

Bruce strolled into the morgue. He saw a couple bodies on the tables, but his eyes fell on the bones in the far corner. He stepped closer to them, only to be stopped by the medical examiner.

"What are you doing in here?" She had stepped out from behind some filing cabinets with a stack of files in her crossed arms.

"I was told to come by and ask if you had some sort of papers for the John Doe."

Her face scrunched up in confusion. "What kind of papers?"

"I offered to pay for the funeral. Mr. Gordon said to come by and talk to you more about it."

"Oh!" She turned around to their desk and sat the files down and then shuffled through forms and documents. "I understand now. Is there a reason for this?"

"I just feel bad for the guy. It's unfair what happened to him."

She shuffled through a folder, then she went back to a filing cabinet and searched it too. "I don't see the papers here. I can go get them real quick." She paused and looked at Bruce. "Can I trust you not to touch anything, Mr. Man?"

Bruce's eyes grew wide in surprise. "Huh? Um. Sure?"

She smiled. "Then stay here for a few minutes. I'll be back with extra copies."

Bruce watched her leave, shocked she'd actually do that. He might even have to bring this up to Gordon at a later date.

After waiting until he couldn't hear her shoes clack anymore, he walked briskly to the table his eyes had laid on earlier. The John Doe. This was him.

A warped skull, a broken pelvis. Worn away shoulder blades. Femurs damaged and half destroyed. Some spinal discs. This was all. This was all...

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

Silence answered him. He stared at the skull. He wanted something. Closure? Perhaps. He knew this was his fault. This wasn't fair to the nameless man, and Bruce wished he could take this all back.

The teeth were gone. The eye sockets broken. Skull was white. White. So white.

Bruce wanted to touch the skull. He only wanted to caress and reassure that everything will be taken care of. Bruce wanted to touch and pet the remaining bone. Wanted to hold it as if it were human still. As if he could help the man who sunk in the green liquid. Bruce wanted to make this guilt go away. He wanted it to leave him and if comforting the bones gave him the closure he so desired, he seriously thought on contaminating the evidence.

That man deserved to live. He must have had a family! A mother. A father. A sibling. Maybe a wife. Perhaps a child.

Bruce's fingers hovered over the skull, his hand shook violently. To touch it would contaminate evidence, but to be fair, there wasn't much evidence in the first place.

Maybe he needed some sort of comfort. The man, that is. Maybe he needed comfort. Bruce needed comfort too, but him...

He died alone. He died as he scratched metal and bleed and as he screamed. He died in so much pain...

Bruce noticed himself shudder at the memory of his nightmare.

"Help me!"

God, the fear.

"Someone please!"

The sadness.

"I don't want to die!"

The pain.

"What are you doing here?"

Bruce jumped away from the table. He looked around the room, and saw no one. He questioned if his brain had only played a trick on him.

"Are you the one who's taking the bones?"

Bruce glanced down under the table. A thin man hugged himself, curled up out of the way. His arms squeezed his legs to his chest. "Well?"

"Who are you?" Bruce asked as calmly as possible. When did he get here? Where did he come from?

"Are you taking the bones?" He repeated.

"Yeah. I'm giving the funeral, who are you?"

"I was going to ask you that."

"I asked first."

"No, not who you are. Who am I?"

Bruce was taken aback by this. "When'd you get here?"

"I don't know."

"How do you not know?" Bruce growled as frustration built itself a home inside his tense muscles.

"You think I want to be here? I don't even know where 'here' is."

Bruce stared down on the man. "I want to know who you are."

"Same here." The man looked down, then after a moment. "What are you going to do with my bones? Cremation? Burial?"

'My bones'? Bruce thought. What kind of sick prank was this?

Suddenly his entirely mood changed from simple frustration to intense anger. He clenched his fists as he shouted, "Do you think this is some kind of joke?! Someone died!'

The man's head snapped back to Bruce, his expression somewhere between shock and confusion. As the words sunk into the man's mind, his face became paler and paler, as if his pigment were being drained away. As if someone was sucking the color from his body. His mouth set into a scowl and his eyes became sharp.

Quicker than light itself, the man was standing face to face with Bruce. His drenched hair shadowed his face, and yet, Bruce could still make out the white complexion. Bruce staggered back against the table behind him, his shaking hands grasping to hold on to something. The table was far too cold.

The man's voice dropped to a low growl. "You know what's really funny? A so called superhero who can't save one single man!"

Just as quick as he had gotten there, the man was back under the table, shaking and curled against his thin frame. He was no longer wet, nor was his skin snow white. He avoided looking at Bruce with his eyes lidded. Gently, he said, "I'm sorry."

And then gone. Like no one was there at all.

Bruce stared in disbelief as the clock on the wall behind him ticked gently, the only other sound being his ragged breath as his heart pounded against his ribcage, screaming to break out.

The table had started to feel wet. Bruce glanced down and sure enough, the table had a rough frost on its shiny metal. The ice had begun to melt away.

No rational thought could explain what just happened, and Bruce knew this. That didn't stop him from pressing his brain for an answer, however ridiculous and unlikely.

He pried his hands of the table and practically ran to the door. He could wait for the papers in the hall, away from whatever he could not explain.


	2. Manor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so I’m sorry this took forever. It might happen again, but I’m proud of chapter two, so I hope the wait is worth it. 
> 
> On a different note, I included a scene to show some simple corruption, and it only mentions the brief relationship between a prostitute and a cop, but I knew I should mention it. There’s no detail, just states that an older man and a pretty girl are doing something. The entire scene is just how angry Bruce gets about it. How he feels he can’t trust the police and how most seem to take bribes. Short. Just a paragraphs. I hope it doesn’t bother anyone. 
> 
> But to the more important stuff, Bruce talks to the mystery ghost victim again. And um. Yeah. 
> 
> Special thanks to pyromanicofthesea. They’ve been my beta for this story, and I can’t say “thank you” enough. Also to everyone who wrote a comment, I would like to thank you as well because it helped motivate me to get this done.

It took hours before Bruce could collect himself enough to sit before the computer. He found his fingers shaking, even after a cruel workout. He didn't know why.

 _You're scared_ , he thought to himself, but he refused to listen. He was the Batman, and the Batman could not be afraid of anything.

He removed the athletic tape from his hands. They were reliable and helpful in keeping his hands compressed and bones aligned, but they were simultaneously too tight and too loose; the tape came undone quickly, and unevenly. Bruce had been shaking too much to apply them correctly before he took whatever emotion-

_Fear_

-that had haunted him at the morgue and attempted to purge it from his mind.

He set them aside and pulled up the computer, then began searching. He was able to get into the police camera system easily despite its security.

He pulled up the footage from the morgue and skipped past his conversation with the medical examiner. Once he had started toward the bones, Bruce let the video play regularly, and examined the environment around and under the table.

He watched himself jump backward and he watched himself search the room, but Bruce's eyes focused on the table itself. Any second, the man would come out from underneath. He needed proof that this man existed, that his terror was valid, and seeing the man come out from his hiding spot would be all the proof he needed. It marked a starting point to finding who the man was and what.

But no one came.

Even when he watched himself fall back against the other table, Bruce saw no man.

Bruce leaned back in his chair. His eyes continued searching the screen for anything. He couldn't understand the emotions or thoughts suddenly flooding his mind. He wanted, or needed, space. He wanted to walk away and put miles between him and the screen. It didn't make sense, and the uncertainty of the event, the lack of immediate proof, crawled under his skin. He was certain the man was real, just as he was certain blood rushed through his veins.

 _This isn't right_ , he thought. _I must have missed something._

He knew there was only one other possible reason for what had happened, but he pushed this down. Perhaps it was his stubborn nature, but he would not accept this alternative answer. He was not ready to face a reality so cruel yet. He was the Batman, and he could not _break_ yet.

He stared at his quivering fingers for several moments before he squeezed them into fists. He could feel the pressure and he heard cracks as fingers were set into their familiar position. He felt heat in his fist, and cool air on his exposed skin. His thoughts, although scattered, began to realign.

 _This is real_ , he told himself, and kept telling himself. His senses were not lost. He did not imagine the pale man. If he wasn't mad, then he had to accept it to be true.

Bruce reached for his cup while trying to keep himself steady. He pulled the cup to his chest and held it with both hands. The tea didn't splash around as much that way. He lifted the cup to his lips and took a small sip, but it had gone cold.

The table was cold. The table was wet.

Bruce’s heart leapt and his eyes brightened. He sat the cup down, eager for the new angle to provide an answer to the whole mess, and he took a closer look at the table he fell back against. He rewatched the last few minutes.

He almost couldn't believe his eyes as ice blossomed across the dry metal surface, but after several replays, he could not dismiss the crystals as anything else. At the very least, something was real and something was better than nothing.

He could work with a “something”.

At the same time, this raised a new question. Where did the ice come from?

Logically, water would have to be on the table before it froze, except this was not the case. The table was dry just like every other. So the next best thing would be not ice, but frost, caused by a drop in temperature. This would cause the water vapor in the air to freeze to the metal table without going through a liquid stage, a process called desublimation. Essentially, the process which makes snow in clouds.

At the time, Bruce had been so caught up in the moment, he hadn't even noticed a temperature drop.

The ice was completely visible on the camera, so why wasn't the man?

Bruce hunched over his keyboard and typed in a new command, to pull out from the table and focus on the big picture once again. He let it play, frame by frame, and he watched with his breath steady for the first time since the incident.

An image of a man flashed onto the screen; Bruce quickly hit pause and examined him.

His skin was snow white and his hair was an astonishingly vivid green. He wore nothing, which left his clearly damaged skin and bony body on display. This was the man Bruce saw in the morgue, or perhaps, the second man. If there were two.

As a thought, Bruce isolated the clip and played it with audio. After a second listen he could identify the barely audible noise.

"... know what's funny? A... hero... who can't save... man."

A shiver ran up his spine.

The information did him little good. It confirmed his terror, and perhaps gave him a leg to stand on, but it hardly gave him answers to what he faced or how to abolish it's threat. For all he knew, the man could be harmless.

He noticed his fingers were quivering again.

He was the Batman. The Batman wasn't supposed to fear anything. That was the reason he chose the bat design. That's why his command center was under his estate in an overgrown cave system infested with hundreds of them.

_"They're more scared of you than you are of them."_

Bruce stood slowly, picked up his cup, and started toward the stairs. He had time before he patrol. He might as well use that time to sleep.

***

There were options for Bruce's newfound problem.

Bruce could ignore the incident at the morgue, and bury the bones inside their coffin at a peaceful cemetery. The one he picked out was a serene one, just outside the city and on the edge of a few acres of forest. Deer and other animals roamed around the graves and kept the deceased company. The groundskeepers even kept a butterfly garden in the middle of the cemetery. The spot he picked out was near the garden itself, closest to violet flowers. The man could rest there amongst beauty and tranquility, forever.

Or, when no one was looking, Bruce could steal the bones away and bury an empty coffin. After the ceremony, he could take the bones back to the cave and face the anomaly that occurred in the morgue.

Morally, the right choice was to bury the bones, but as much as he wanted to send the man to a peaceful place, Bruce had a hard time ignoring the man that appeared.

Bruce had nightmares every day up until the funeral about the man and his sudden change. He pitied the man at first, when he hid under the table with shame written throughout his posture and face. On the other hand, there was the pale man. He held strength in his posture, malice in his words, and a frightful tone. Bruce couldn't quite put into words how he felt about him, considering the word afraid seemed like an understatement. The two sides were exact opposites, as different as the sun and the moon. Bruce still didn't know why they were there, and he couldn't say for sure if they were the same person.

Either way, Bruce doubted the man would just lay at rest in a graveyard.

Against his better judgement, Bruce carried his duffle bag back to his house. He could hear the bones shift and rattle as he carried them up his steps to the front door. He was grateful for the lack of attention that he had received concerning the bag thus far, and he wished that streak to continue a little longer past Alfred. Bruce promised himself he would tell the faithful man but at that moment, he didn't know exactly how to defend his choice. Until he knew what to do, he'd keep quiet about it.

He rushed to the old grandfather clock, set the time, and watched the wall slide open. A draft of cold air rushed past him. He stepped onto the stairs, and he set the wall back to normal before heading down.

The sound of shoes on the hard stone steps echoed loud and far. The sound reminded Bruce of the morgue. The sound reminded him of the clock on the far wall, the harshness of his ragged breath, and the rapid pulse under his skin.

The memories forced him to pause half way down the staircase. This felt wrong. Something about bringing the pale man to the cave made him sick. Like this wasn't supposed to happen.

Like he didn't belong.

A different feeling flooded him, the same one he had ever since he met the man. He owed him. He took his life from him because he couldn't do his job and save him. Whether Bruce was uneasy or not, this was what had to happen. He had to fix what he had broke.

Bruce shelved his feelings away and continued down the steps.

He set the duffel bag onto a metal table before he unzipped it and carefully laid the bones out where he could examine them himself. He placed them gently. They had seen too much before their time was up.

He laid them out much like the mortician had when the bones were in the morgue. He tried placing them exactly as his memory perceived them to be, with the intact femur on the man’s right side of the body and the broken femur on his left.

Bruce realized quickly, however, that the spinal discs could be in the wrong order, and he wouldn't know the difference. The spinal column had practically dissolved, leaving the remaining six pieces which looked very similar to him. They were badly damaged, and he doubted that reference photos would help him tell the difference. Bruce shuffled them around, adjusted them, and compared them.

Nothing he did looked right. He couldn't fix it at that very moment although he very much wished too. Mistakes always distracted him until he could fix them. Today was no different, and if anything, it was worse, holding his thoughts hostage even as he adjusted the bone’s positions.

He set the empty bag on the ground, trying to contemplate the best and most accurate way of finding the correct order for the John Doe...

That name. It was so plain and terrible at the exact same time. Bruce stared at the nameless man; the fact that his name was far beyond Bruce’s reach crushed him. They stripped the man of his given name and replaced it with "John Doe". It was insulting and worse, a way of saying that his name was not important. That they had given up the search.

The feeling of disappointment and guilt washed over him again. It was the same feeling he has felt since he met the man, the same feeling that pushed him to the edge and threatened to push him off. He made a mistake, and he had to fix it, no matter what it took to get there.

In all this time, he hadn't seen the man again. It was no surprise that the man was not there with him when he laid the bones out.

And maybe that was for the best. Bruce’s mind was scattered and uneven. If the man came then, Bruce would not stand his ground. He needed time to steel his nerves and build his defenses. The man was unnatural; he put Bruce on edge and made him uncomfortable.

***

There's a ticking in his ear. A quick ticking. It complements the thumping in his other ear.

Tick, thump, tick, thump, tick, thump.

He can see his breath, which was more like a fog leaving his lips. He can hardly see beyond that, can hardly see anything beyond the table in front of him. He feels impending doom; it covers his skin, and crawls up his spine.

He turns around, and jumps back against a table. A cold, cold metal table. Ice bites his bare hands.

A man stands under a spotlight, his green stare piercing and unmoving. He feels the man stare straight into his soul, and he feels powerless to stop the man from reading him. The man pokes and prods through him, turning pages and learning more about him than he ever revealed to anyone in the world.

This man doesn't move, but he stands still in an unnerving way. His eyes don't flick one way or another, his pupils don't expand and contract, his eyes are simply unalive. Dead. But just because they don't move, just because they don't react, it doesn't mean that they are dull. They are bright, fierce, sharp.

His skin is bright as well, but in a way that the light shining down on his skin reflects it, and makes him look whiter than he actually is. The shadows under his chin and against his neck are too dark. Down between his legs as well.

 _Beautiful_ , he thinks at first.

His grin is sharp, just like his teeth. His lips are far too red.

 _Haunting_.

He stares in horror up at the man, with neon green hair and ghost white skin.

Tick tick tick, thump thump thump, tick tick tick.

Panic wells up in his chest. The cold air prickles along his arms with goosebumps, even though they are covered with his suit.

The man chuckles with a sickly sweet voice as he stares down onto him, looking down on him, as if he is inferior.

"You know what's really funny?" the pale man giggles.

He feels his heart stop.

"A so called superhero who can't save one single man!"

Laughter echoes through the air, deafening as gunshots, overriding all sounds until all he can hear is the pale man…

Bruce jolted awake.

He hunched forward in his chair and pressed his shivering hands to his face. They were cold. He tried to focus on that, but his mind felt scattered and unorganized. He tried harder.

His lungs burned from his breathing, and his chest heaved with his labored inhales. His heart was still thumping too. It pumped and pushed blood. He could hear the pulse. He could hear it. It was still working. He was still alive.

Bruce took a moment to breathe. These nightmares were getting out of control. Maybe he needed to talk to someone. Anyone. It was something he didn't want to admit. He wanted to be strong and face the world with no help required. He found it hard to ask for that help, or to dump his emotional baggage onto anyone. Even Alfred, the only bit of family he had in this world, was off limits. Maybe he could talk to him about a good deal of things, but Bruce couldn't share everything.

He looked up to his computer screen and froze.

In the reflection he could see himself, but behind him, he could see another man by the bones. He took another deep breath.

_He's here._

Bruce hesitated. He watched a second too long, and glanced away. His mind raced around, desperate to remember the questions that plagued him. He grasped at them, and though they had been repeating for days, the words escaped his grasp. He wasn’t prepared to face the man again.

In the reflection, the man moved gracefully from one side of the table to the other. The man didn't touch his own bones. He reached for them, but he wouldn't go closer than a few inches. His image shook, as though he were unsure. The man’s image disappeared from the reflection. Despite his unsettled thoughts, Bruce stood up from his chair to get a better look.

The man stood only inches from his own skull, and he stared into its empty eye sockets. Bruce wondered what the man saw, and he wondered how it must feel to stare at your own corpse.

A bone chilling picture of himself in the vat appeared in his head.

How would he fair? In burning acid and chemicals, drowning and unable to get out? What would he do while staring in the face of death?

This man knew that pain. He could never relate to it, not even if he tried to picture it. He realized that his nightmares about this man, particularly those of him that night, were nowhere close to how it would really feel. The feeling of acidic burns melting your skin slowly and scratching the walls-

_“purposely clawed the interior”_

-trying desperately to send some sort of message before drowning in it. Drowning in green fire.

There wasn't a lot he could picture to be worse than dying that slowly.

Bruce cautiously stepped closer to the man and the table. He was still several feet away, but if he moved toward him, he hoped to draw the man's attention.

But the man hadn't noticed, mesmerized by the emptiness in his own eye sockets.

Bruce could understand. He had stared into the skull’s eyes too, watched nothing in the empty cavities and pondered mortality.

After a several minutes passed, the man circled the bones. He seemed very interested in the broken femur when he noticed Bruce standing only 6 feet in front of him. The man jumped away with a startled yelp, then fell to his knees to crawl under the table.

Bruce’s stomach twisted and his throat constricted. He also wanted to hide, but he knew that hiding would not solve this. It would not solve his distressful nights, it would not solve his guilt, and it would not solve his fears.

 _This man is more scared of me than I am of him,_ Bruce told himself.

"Come out,” he said. “I won't hurt you."

The man curled into himself, similar to how Bruce had found him in the morgue. He didn't reply.

"I promise I won't hurt you." Bruce kneeled down so he could look the man in the eyes. "Come out. I want to help you."

The man lifted his head to look at Bruce. "I'm sorry."

Bruce was taken aback. He didn't understand the man’s apology, so he ignored it and beckoned the man to come out again.

Finally, the man did. Cautiously though. The man uncurled himself and crawled out, but he crawled out backward to put the table between Bruce and himself. Bruce dismissed it as distrust.

The man looked about him, turning in a circle in awe and shock as though he were seeing the cave for the first time. Bruce wondered how long the man was alone with his bones before Bruce woke.

The man's mouth hung open just a bit as he took in the room and walls surrounding the two of them. "Where are we?" his voice quivered.

Bruce took a deep breath before answering. He felt his heart picking up, and his hands starting to shake. He closed them into a fist.

 _I am not afraid,_ Bruce told himself.

"This is my home."

The man looked backward to Bruce. His eyes trailed down him and back up, then past him to the computer.

"This... looks like- like a cave."

"It's my home," Bruce said firmer.

"Why?" The man's head tilted just slightly to the side. "It's awful dark in here."

"I would hope so," Bruce said without hesitation. The man winced, and Bruce caught himself before saying more. He glanced away. Unable to think correctly, he needed to gain a new angle and regain his posture and his calm. "My friends don't like the light," he finally said with a softer tone, and pointed upward.

The man's face twisted in confusion. He looked up hesitantly. Upon seeing the many bats above him, his eyes widened. He shrunk down to the ground and crawled under the table again.

Bruce found himself unclenching his hands, and his heartbeat slowing. He didn't feel calm, not entirely anyway, but he felt pity for the man before him.

He took a few steps closer to the table, then knelt to look underneath. "Are you scared of them?"

The man held his head in his hands. He must have been scared; his shoulders and hands twitched and shuddered.

"They won't hurt you. They eat bugs. They are more afraid of you than you are of them."

"Why am I here?" The man's silken voice sounded just as rattled as the rest of him.

"I want to know your name."

The man's head lifted enough for him to make eye contact with Bruce before he whispered, "You took the bones... Why don't you know who I am?"

It dawned on Bruce that this man's logic wasn't wrong. The people taking the bones of a victim tend to actually have known the deceased, if nothing more than their name.

"I don't know who these bones belonged to," Bruce confessed.

The man's shoulders dropped low and his eyes grew wide. His lips deepened into a frown, and his head dropped to his knees. "I don't understand," he whimpered. "Why is this happening to me?"

Bruce fought the urge to reach out and hold the man. Instead, Bruce steeled his nerves. "I need to know who you are."

"But I don't know,” the man whined.

"You need to think. Anything is better than nothing. A name of a person you knew. A place you worked."

"I don't know anything.” The man wrapped his arms over his head as if he wanted to hide. He reminded Bruce more and more of a child. He didn't know how to feel about it.

"Think harder."

"I can't-"

"You need to right now," Bruce raised his voice. He stared down on the cowering man before him. A surge of frustration and anger flooded through his veins. "Don't you understand how important this is?" He growled, harsher than he meant to, but he was too slow to catch or correct it. "I need to know who you are! I can't help you if I don't know. What do you remember?"

It was a very tense few seconds, with Bruce searching for any signs from the man, but he had gone still, too still, as if he was frozen and turned to stone.

Just as Bruce was about to speak again, the man lifted his head with a glare in his eyes, sharper than the pale man's teeth. Bruce could do nothing as the man's face lost its color. As he became paler, and his hair become brighter, more vivid and exotic, his mouth turned into a scowl.

Adrenaline pushed through his veins, kickstarting his heart into overdrive and sending his blood running cold. He pushed himself off his knees and into a crouch.

"You want to know what I know?" The man whispered and teased the words that left his crimson lips.

As if the pale man knew Bruce would try to bolt for the door, he shot to his feet almost instantaneously, startling Bruce. Bruce fell backwards onto the cold metal flooring. The pale man glared down onto Bruce with a burning hatred, and the images from Bruce's nightmare came back to him.

He felt small and helpless against the towering and powerful devil.

The temperature dropped quickly. He could feel his entire body shiver, though he wasn't sure if he shuttered from the frozen air or his own terror. Then the lights began to flicker, like the tiny flame of a candle. Bruce couldn't help but beg silently that they would not burn out and leave him alone in the darkness with his nightmare.

Bruce swallowed a lump in his throat as he tried to crawl backwards away from the pale man. His back hit the edge of the step and dug into his skin.

"I remember pain!" The man yelled suddenly and sharply. His face twisted with anger and distrust. "I remember burning skin and a throbbing headache! I remember the splash, and my nails breaking! But you know what I really remember? Above all else? The one thing that replays _over and over?_ "

Bruce stared at the man's eyes, unmoving and unnerving, dead, but still sharp and bright.

 _"I remember you watching me fall!"_ He screeched.

Bruce’s breath shuddered. His tongue felt heavy; he didn't know what to say, or if he was supposed to say anything. Every sentence, every word, he thought of didn't sound appropriate to say. Even a simple, "I'm sorry" felt too little. This man deserved more, but Bruce didn't know where to start.

A few seconds had gone by before the man whispered. "Do you have anymore questions for me, _Bat man?_ "

Bruce's eyes widened.

The man blamed the Batman. This wasn’t surprising, except the way he sneered the Batman’s name sounded as though he blamed heroism and it's faults. Its inability to protect innocent men despite this one action being the entire point of a hero. He didn't blame Bruce, even though he was the one inside the suit.

If Bruce was honest, it sounded like a cruel joke.

"No?” the man whispered, sounding more tired the longer he stood before Bruce. He muttered, “Good. Then stop trying, and leave me alone."

Once again, Bruce watched the man vanish before his eyes. Only this time, he had no escape route. This time, he had no safe place to run to in order to leave the terrifying man behind him.

***

The clock ticked steadily. It had not stopped, nor has any other noise overrode the terrible ticking the clock emitted. He had a desire to get rid of it.

He rubbed the bone again with a cotton swab in attempt to pull DNA. From the previous negative samples, he knew this was futile. He just didn't want to break a piece of the bone off to try and sample the DNA from it that way.

Breaking anything else would be the absolute final option.

As he examined the swab, the clock seemed to get louder. He knew it had not increased in volume, but his ears tried very hard to trick him into thinking it had.

He put the swab inside a test tube. Obviously, the acid had stripped away all DNA, and the likelihood that he could pull anything from the marrow was slightly more likely than a giant bat monster destroying Gotham.

He would've taken those chances, if he could tell if any bone actually had marrow to harvest. The bones were worn down in such a strange way. He was still confused on how the acid worked a hole through the broken femur. It looked quite hollow.

He examined the outside of the bone and took notes on how the bone had been striped by the acid. He realized he would have to do more research on bones to determine what was so potent about the acid.

He sat the broken femur down to take a sip of coffee. He held the mug with a firm grip. As he took his sip, he tried to clear his racing mind enough to think from a new perspective.

Only then did he notice that the ticking clock had stopped bothering him while his thoughts clouded his brain. Now that the cloud was dissipating, the ticking echoed louder to him. He sat the mug down, away from the bones, as he looked at the clock with what he could only describe in that moment as annoyance.

He buckled down and attempted to focus on the bones again.

Bruce picked up the skull with both his gloved hands and turned it delicately this way and that. The mandible was not found with the bones, only leaving the cranium and what would be considered half a face. The upper teeth were completely gone as well, meaning he could not attempt any form of dental records.

The technology he had was well beyond other computers, but even he couldn't digitally reconstruct the missing man's face. Without the mandible to construct a jaw, the lower portion of the face would be blank. However, he could not even reconstruct the upper half because of the damage done to his nasal cavity, eye sockets, and cheekbones. The degradation left Bruce with even less to work with.

Perhaps if he could sample the chemical, he could analyze it and test its properties. This would give him an idea of how the chemical reacts with different tissues and perhaps, even better, provide a clue as to how his skull would have looked before it was warped.

 _And maybe_ , Bruce thought. _A window in which he would have died. A time, perhaps._

Bruce let his fingers caress the skull.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Bruce's fingers slipped inside the hole in the back of the skull. He hadn’t identified why the man's cranium had this hole. It wasn't ungodly big, but it wasn't small either. It was smooth to the touch, much like the other bones, but unlike the other bones, it was easy to look inside the hollow cavity here.

He didn't think he would find anything, but Bruce took a swab and rubbed the inside of the skull to test for DNA. At the very least, he didn't have to break the cranium to get inside. Besides, even if he were unlikely to find anything, it was better to be thorough.

It didn't make sense for the nameless man's skull to have a hole in it just from the acid, particularly because everything was enveloped in it. The acid should have eaten away at similar tissues at the same pace, just like it would have with his skin and muscles.

Unless there was already a hole.

 _Or crack_.

Which would explain the deformity because the acid would get inside the crack and it would then dissolve the cranium outward until it made a hole.

_Which means he might have had a skull fracture._

Any sort of head trauma involving cracks to the skull tend to also come with concussions. After all, any sort of force capable of fracturing a skull would be more than enough to jostle the brain itself.

Tick tick tick, tock tock tock, tick tick tick.

_The man used Morse code because he wasn't capable of anything else._

***

Bruce kept an ear open for people walking past the door as he searched for the evidence from the Ace Chemicals break in. He slowly crept along the room, reading one case number after another, until finally he saw the right one. He slid the box out of its slot and set it down on a table behind him.

He lifted the lid off and set it to the side, then he pulled out the Red Hood. He examined the broken pieces, noticing in particular that the back had been damaged the worst.

He might have had a skull fracture.

The damage done to the hood could have been enough to crack the man's skull, just as he had predicted.

Bruce heard the clacking of high heels walking in the hallway. His shoulders tensed and his pulse quickened as they paused outside the door. He kept his breath steady as he gently sat the hood down inside the box and waited for the person to leave.

When the sound of a key slid into the door, Bruce ducked under the table.

The box may have sat on the table still, but the lights were dim in this room. He doubted whoever came in would notice it. He was in the back of the room, a ways away from the door. Minimizing objects in this area, especially moving, like himself, might give him the edge in staying hidden.

The door swung open, and a young lady came in, followed by an older man. A much older man. Bruce couldn't make out who was who, though with such an unlikely couple he thought-

Bruce drew a slow steady breath to calm himself.

The corruption he could see unfolding before him made him uneasy. It was becoming clear this man had arrested her for prostitution and would let her go as payment.

This was not what the police station was meant for. This room was not what this was meant for. This was an evidence room, for people who had been wronged. There was too much pain documented in this room to be tampered with by their act.

Even the idea that a man who was trusted by the public would get away with this because of how many other officers he was sure got away with it made his stomach churn. He had heard some stories from his perches. Stories of corner girls that would pay their way out of a jail cell. And stories of officers that had gone too far.

They were easy to pay off. The police have let several high class criminals go just for the money. Gordon was the only officer Bruce found with no record of this. Still, he worried that one day Gordon will also fall into this growing pit of corruption.

Time went by, and he listened to the two moan and whisper dirty words. Finally, Bruce could hear her complaining to the old man about where his semen ended up.

Bruce could feel his stomach twist and clench. It made him sick listening to it. It made him nauseous. Still, he did nothing. The nameless man’s case was more important to him at that moment. He had to take the evidence with him, and he would prefer to do so without being noticed by anyone.

After the lady put her underwear back on, and after the man smacked her bottom, they left the room, locking it just as it were before.

Bruce didn't move until he couldn't hear footsteps anymore. Only then did he slip out from under the table, and pull the red hood back out of the box. Bruce then sat the helmet down on the table so he can put the box back on it's rightful shelf. He'd examine the hood more later, back at the cave. He saw a different glint out the corner of his eye when he looked back. He reached in.

He pulled out a a bag containing a ring, a silver wedding band to be exact. He turned it this way and that as he looked at its shiny nature. It almost looked brand new, but only in the way that it was polished. He caught a glimpse of an engraving on the inside of the ring.

"J"

Bruce looked closer in an attempt to find more, but couldn't see anything other than the letter.

"Where did you come from?" Bruce whispered to the ring.

There was no way the engraving would be so worn away if the ring was new, but there was no way for it to have been this well polished if the owner had it for a long time.

Bruce read the information on the bag. His eyes widened. They found the ring in the vat, caught in the drain.

The acid must have eroded it.

But this, too, was strange. What sort of properties did this acid have to be able to erode both the keys and this ring like this? Were there eroded pieces in the Red Hood too?

He slipped it into a pocket in his belt. He would take a closer look later, and try to track down the maker.

As a thought, Bruce also retrieved the man’s keys and searched for anything else that belonged to him. He saw guns marked with names of the culprits using them, but no other piece of evidence in the box seemed to belong to the nameless man.

Disappointed, Bruce placed the lid back onto the box and slid it back onto the shelf. He took the Red Hood into his arms and slipped out the window, back to his car.

***

The silver wedding band sat on the table next to the bones. Bruce looked in its direction. He had a hard time keeping his eyes off it.

The ring seemed much more beautiful the more Bruce looked at it. It had a shine to it that made the ring look like it had multiple colors. He knew it was silver, but there seemed to be layers of blueish hues, and in different light, he had noticed that it could look like it had a green hue. He wondered if the acid coated the metal to make it shine. It was the strangest phenomenon he had ever seen.

Bruce wanted to try it on. It was a strange feeling for him.

This ring belonged to the nameless man. It was his, not Bruce's. But the thought of putting it on made him feel...

Bruce touched it. He slid it across the table away from himself.

_I'm not a thief._

The ring was going to be Bruce's gift back to the man.

It was the only thing he could think of to even remotely start talking with him again. The ring might be enough to get them on decent terms and Bruce hoped they could start over from there.

Bruce stared at the ring though. It was a little small to Bruce. Seemed like if he were to try putting it on, he'd have to slip it onto his little finger.

This was most likely the man's, and if this was how thin his fingers were...

An image flashed across Bruce's mind. The man's thin, elegant hands, with this ring on his ring finger, and his gloves covering it.

The ring surely would be invisible under a good pair of gloves.

Bruce felt an itch just under his nose, and he scratched it.

For a moment, Bruce couldn't help thinking they'd look good on someone with well kept fingernails. He thought the shine and hue might match well with nail polishes.

Bruce thought of the man’s nails painted a vivid red, then he rejected that idea. It seemed a bit odd. This man taking the time to get his nails done didn't sound like the kind of thing a man tricked into theft would do.

_Maybe not painted._

Bruce could imagine the man scratching the walls of the vat, his nails breaking.

_Maybe blood._

Bruce stared at his nails. He thought about how they were nicely done and how he had to keep them that way. He couldn't act like a million dollar playboy without looking the part.

The idea of his nails ripping away from his fingers made him shudder.

Bruce finally hid his own finger nails from himself. Everything around him was just... overwhelming. Between the bones and the belongings. Between the ticking clock and his own breathing. With the evidence and his nightmares clinging to his thoughts, he had a hard time focusing on anything else, and that was almost too much.

Bruce licked his dry lips.

Bruce had dressed differently this time. Not in his suit and tie and not in his cape and cowl. He wore his sweatpants and a black tee. Casual this time. Bruce didn't want to look threatening, but nor did he want to feel caught off guard. The clothes he wore now didn't make him feel secure, but Bruce believed that if he kept watch, kept his eyes open, and waited for him, then maybe he can be prepared for when he did come. He wouldn't be startled, at least.

In his head, this was his way of compromising.

This time, he told himself, if the pale man appeared, he would be able to handle it. He told himself the same mantra over and over in his head.

_He is more scared of you than you are of him._

Bruce waited for hours. He would not let the bones out of his sight, certain that, like the last two times, the man would appear around the remains.

This was his plan, and he was never going without or against a plan again. Not after the embarrassing and almost failed conversation with Gordon a week before.

Yet after a whole night of nothing before him, no one appearing, he wondered if it wasn't working.

Bruce rubbed sleep from his eyes.

The man came to the morgue when he was there, and he appeared here when Bruce had fallen asleep. Bruce had seen him at these two moments but they had no other connection.

The man came forward- appeared- at those moments for a reason. If it wasn't at random, or on a schedule, then he had to have made himself appear.

So why?

Sure, Bruce was there to pick up the bones, and perhaps the man wanted to ask him questions but why did he appear when Bruce was sleeping? Or did he not have a reason, and he just wanted to have a moment with himself?

The man appeared for a reason.

Bruce sighed, and he thought about the last two weeks.

"I know this isn't enough," Bruce said, softly, but loud enough. He stared at the ground at that moment, unable to look at the bones.

This was it. This was what could make everything better, or far worse. Furthermore, this was his attempt at a proper apology.

"I'm sorry," Bruce finally said aloud.

Silence engulfed him. He had no way of telling if the nameless man was there to hear him or if he was talking to himself.

"What happened that night. It wasn't supposed to happen. I wanted to catch you." Bruce swallowed the lump in his throat. "I mean-” he paused. “I didn't want to let you fall. I didn't mean to let you slip out of my hands. I tried. I feel responsible for what happened."

Bruce looked toward the bones. This man’s death was his fault, and he could feel that fact burrowing into his skull.

"You blame me, and I understand that. I'm not asking for any sort of forgiveness. I blame myself too. I’m new to this. This is the first major mistake I've made. I'm sorry that it ended like that. With-"

 _Your death_ , he thought.

Bruce bit his lip. The slight pain brought his mind to a halt, allowing him to think through his words.

"I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't ready, and I want to be stronger for the next time something this terrible happens. I want to be a better hero and that's a promise I'll make to myself."

Bruce glanced around the room. The man was still nowhere to be seen.

"Look, I just-,” he felt himself become flustered again, and he countered it with a deep breath. “I can't fix this. I don't know how to make this better. Giving you a funeral was just a cover. What I want to do… I want to find out who you were before this. I want to give your name and your life back to you. It's all I can do. I know..." Bruce’s voice fell to a whisper, though his voice still echoed in the empty cave. "I know that isn't enough, but I don't know what else to do."

He glanced around and saw no one. His heart sunk a little, and he felt like a fool waiting for the man. It was becoming clear the man didn't want to talk to him, and Bruce understood that. He wasn't exactly welcoming or hospitable the two times they had meet.

He sat back against his chair. Eventually, he spoke again, after what felt like many minutes. "I am sorry that I don't already have your name to give back to you. I was thinking, if you'd prefer it, you can have a temporary name. Something better than John Doe and maybe a little more personal to you.”

Bruce crossed his arms together, more to hug himself than anything. It was getting chilly in the cave.

His eyes widened, and he glanced around.

The man had appeared, behind a box to Bruce's left. Bruce couldn't tell how long he'd been there. He wasn't quite cowering, but he hid behind it as if he expected to be attacked. Like a soldier hides in a gunfight. Bruce couldn't get angry about it. After the first two incidents, Bruce realized he was offensive, and intimidating.

_He's more scared of you than you are of him._

Bruce stood up out of his chair, straightening his black tee, and he kept his legs together. He realized how formal his stance was, even without his formal clothes.

Habits were hard to break.

"I'm not gonna hurt you."

"You couldn't even if you tried," the man whispered.

Bruce hesitated. He wasn't sure if that was a threat or a fact. "Did you hear everything I said?"

"Yes."

"And what do you think?"

Silence echoed in his ears as he waited, eager for the man's response. This was so important, and this was the key to a better bridge between them. He found himself quietly willing the man to say he liked the idea.

The man stepped out a little from behind the box. He also tried straightening himself. "I don't know."

Bruce's slight smile caved a bit. "How so?"

"I just don't know if any name will sound right."

Bruce glanced away from the man. He hadn’t thought of that.

"Does any name you've heard sound nice to you?"

The man closed his eyes, then opened them a few moments later. "I can't think of anything. I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Bruce said as reassuring as he could. He smiled. "What if I tried giving you a name?"

The man looked at him in confusion. "You want to name me?"

"If that's okay with you."

Bruce noticed his heartbeat, and his breathing, and the ticking from the clock. He waited, though not patiently, as the man turned the idea over in his head.

"What name did you have in mind?" The man finally asked with his soft voice.

Bruce didn't know a name either. He hadn't given much thought to that beforehand because he thought it would mean more if the man had picked something for himself. He started running through a list of names in his head, knowing full well that he had to pick one that sounded right. Though, if he was honest, anything was better than John Doe. Even knowing this, he couldn’t force himself to pick just any name because “better” was not “best” and didn’t always mean “right”.

Then he remembered the ring and the engraved letter.

"What about Jay?"

The name did seem right. It fit Bruce’s mouth well, and the vowel echoed sweetly. He couldn’t help but remember how the man sounded on the video footage from that one night, and how his voice sounded sweet. Silky. “A” sounded like the right vowel for the man’s voice. The name wasn’t harsh, but instead overall gentle.

"J? Like the letter?"

"Spelled J-A-Y, but yes."

His eyes sparkled like dew on a leaf as his lips spread into a gentle smile. "I think I like that."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading. I intend to be more active on AO3 so I’m hoping I’ll get more of this done in a timely fashion.


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